Protective Effects of Helmet Type on Facial Injuries

Abstract The compulsory use of helmet by motorcyclists has lowered the incidence of facial trauma, but there are few studies evaluating the effects of different helmet types on such injuries. The authors collected retrospective data from the medical records of 287 motorcyclists presenting facial injuries treated at the maxillofacial surgery department of the “University Magna Graecia” of Catanzaro city in South Italy between 1 January 2007 and 1 August 2018. Patients were wearing 2 types of crash helmets at the time of the trauma, full face ones or open-face ones, and were compared using the Facial Injury Severity Scale (FISS). Those wearing open-face helmet were 3 times more than those wearing full-face helmet, with a higher FISS score. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of Italy's compulsory helmet law on the change in helmet use and in particular if protection offered by helmets w4as different according to helmet type. The authors correlated the FISS scores among motorcyclists wearing these 2 tipologies of crash helmet.